The minibus door sprang open and out jumped Shane Warne. Then Adam Gilchrist. Then Ricky Ponting. The driver, a dead ringer for Glenn McGrath with triumphant teeth and superstar shades, grinned as more followed. Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden and Michael Clarke. And still there were more. Michael Hussey, Damien Martyn, Stuart Clark. This is where it began to get a little surreal for me. It was late at night and I'd already done my fair share of dribbling on to the beanbag but I could swear the whole team left that minibus.

It could have been a scene from the Keystone Kops - except, of course, they were laughably incompetent and the Aussies are ruthlessly efficient. In fact, it was the fourth day of the first Test in the ultimate revenge Ashes. And, while the English were suffering breakdowns and panic attacks on and off the pitch, the insouciant Aussies were having a ball. I half expected Warney to emerge from the minibus with a ladder, prop it on the wall and break into The Gabba rather than take the tradesman's entrance.

The minibus is a symbol of solidarity - we're in this together, we don't need a posh team coach - and though Warney may be a tubster going on 38 he still gets to sit beside the driver. More than Ponting's batting, McGrath's metronome, Langer's slapbangery, more than anything, it's the minibus that should put the frighteners on England.

My friend Steve, the fairest man I know, saw them emerging from the minibus and said, "See, this is the difference; the Aussies are real men." I think Steve, who knows nothing about cricket and less about men, is wrong. The Aussies are as enthusiastic, hungry and fearless as boys.

The minibus is, in effect, an extension of the boot camp that all 25 members of the Ashes squad had to attend three months ago. At the four-day camp in Queensland's Beerwah State Forest - I'm A Cricketer . . . Get Me Out of Here - the squad were reduced to numbers (names were not allowed), they were rationed food and water, denied phones, beds and showers, they had to battle snakes, six-foot kangaroos and would-be terrorists, push cars along rocky terrain with their bare hands and allowed no contact with their families.

Eben Jefford, a former SAS officer who ran the camp, explained how it was based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs - a theory of psychology used by elite forces. "We want to strip the players of their self-identity and personal status and have everyone working from the same level at the bottom of the ladder." Three months on and everybody is riding in the same minibus and singing from the same hymn sheet.

Meanwhile what has the England coach Duncan Fletcher done to boost team spirit? He has hinted that it was scary being around Marcus Trescothick when he was cracking up, told the world that Geraint Jones has won his place back because Chris Read can't cope with pressure and suggested that Monty Panesar is a liability because he can't score enough runs irrespective of how many wickets he takes. This is a man who gives the impression that he would play Geoff Boycott as his spinner if he wasn't commentating on the series.

The effect on morale is clear. We have a strike bowler so scared he bowls the first ball of the series to second slip and an opener so counter-intuitive he swats himself out twice in three days.

How do we begin to compete with them, then? First, we have to regain our nerve - there were signs in the second innings but nothing more. If that means locking Fletcher in his hotel room for the second Test, so be it. Next we have to show them we're up for a fight - that it wasn't enough to win the Ashes, now we want to retain them.

What terrified them last year was coming face to face with two players, in Freddie Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, with appetites just as big as theirs - both on and off the pitch. In Freddie they had met a man that could out-beer, out-curry and out-hit any of them. This was a man who Stuart Law, Australian batsman and Lancashire team-mate, claimed was capable of breaking David Boon's record of drinking 52 tinnies on a Sydney-London flight; a team every bit as capable of acts of daring, brilliance and OTT stupidity as anything Warney and Co could muster. Eighteen months on they look shrivelled and subdued.

Yes, we could do with our own solidarity team bus, but such is the state of affairs that more extreme measures are called for. Forget nets and the gym. Flintoff must take his motley crew out on a bender, get them well and truly Freddied, freshen up with a quick jog to the Adelaide Oval and on Friday give the Aussies uninhibited hell.